Turning Tyrants into Tools in Health Practice : The Integrated Practitioner

'In order to provide integrated healthcare, we need to integrate a huge number of...entities.

Each one of these entities can be a useful tool for our practice.

To be effective practitioners, we hope to gain some mastery of them.

But sometimes we feel as if they have mastery of us.

There are days when we feel on top of our game, we keep to time, we know instantly what's wrong, the right treatment is immediately to hand, our colleagues are supportive and helpful, and birdsong drifts through our open summer window.

Then there are the other days...' Justin Amery This extraordinary new series fills a void in practitioner development and well-being.

The books take a reflective step back from the tick-box, target-driven and increasingly regulated world of 21st century health practice; and invite us to revisit what health and health practice actually are.

Building carefully on the science and philosophy of health, each book addresses the messy, complex and often chaotic world of real-life health practice and offers an ancient but now almost revolutionary understanding for students and experienced practitioners alike: that health practice is a fundamentally creative and compassionate activity.

The series as a whole helps practitioners to redefine and recreate their daily practice, in ways that are healthier for both patients and practitioners.

The books provide a welcome antidote to demoralisation and burn-out amongst practitioners, reversing cynicism and reviving our feeling of pride in, and our understanding of, health practice.

By observing practice life through different lenses, they encourage the development of efficiency, effectiveness and, above all, satisfaction.

The third book in the series, The Integrated Practitioner: Turning Tyrants into Tools in Health Practice explores the relationship between practitioners and their tangible, external tools such as time, computers, money, information, colleagues, equipment, targets and office spaces, along with less tangible elements like knowledge, understanding, language, values and beliefs.

These tools can be of great benefit when fully integrated and balanced but they often end up controlling practitioners, dictating the manner in which the practice operates and ultimately reducing efficacy.

It suggests ways for practitioners to harness the positive forces of these tools and regain control.

Brilliantly written, practitioners, students and trainees and GP trainers will find the enlightening, witty, conversational style a joy to read.